– Publicists, politicians say that this is harmful to Poland. What is your opinion?
Of course, it is not harmful. The Polish Anti-War Movement promotes peace slogans. Who can judge today of politicians, publicists, or scientists that peace is harmful, for Poland, for the Polish state, for the Polish Nation? Of course not. Peace is we all need today. And not only for us Poles, but for all Europeans and all the inhabitants of our globe. I believe that there is nothing more topical than anti-war movements.
The Polish Anti-War Movement is a new organization, a new social movement that inaugurated its activities on February 3, 2023 in Częstochowa. The initiators of are: Sebastian Pitoń and Leszek Sykulski. We believe that today it is necessary to very loudly say that this is NOT our war, it is not our war - the war in Ukraine. Poland should not send military equipment. Poland should not arm Ukraine, because it puts the Polish state and us as Polish residents, in terms of a possible retaliatory attack from Russia.
It is in our, well understood, interest to end the conflict as soon as possible in Ukraine and Poland here should be a mediator, should join in diplomatically, while absolutely not militarily.
Let me emphasize right away that we condemn Russian aggression against Ukraine, we do not subscribe to this aggression in any way, but we believe that humanitarian aid does, while military aid does not.
– What is the public response to this action?
Huge. In the first day after the inauguration, after the movement was announced, we received more than 1,000 messages, 1,000 submissions from people who want to join in building the Polish Anti-War Movement, people who want to provide their places on their properties for banners, for billboards, want to hang posters, print flyers with their own money, because this is a grassroots movement.
We do not have any budget, yet, because the movement was established as a social committee, whose goal is to conduct a public collection, while we know that today in Poland censorship prevails, we know that today the opposition, including the anti-war opposition, is very strongly fought by Law and Justice, by Solidarity Poland, so we are not counting on it, that the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration will give us permission for a public collection, and therefore, here we will ask and appeal for grassroots funding for this type of movement.
We will probably not collect money centrally. We will ask people, we will provide ready graphics, because we have volunteers, very professional graphic designers. who for free, simply pro publico bono, for the public good prepare such graphics for us, and everyone will be able to print yourself stickers, posters, banners, billboards, depending on the size of your wallet and logistical capabilities.
– Are there any responses, such as some foreign media or important people who are interested in interest in this?
A march is taking place in Slovakia today, to which we have been invited. A delegation of the Polish Anti-War Movement, headed by Sebastian Piton, will participate today in Poprad precisely in the anti-war march.
– In Poland, in our country, will there be such actions, will they be cyclical? How do you see the further activities of this organization?
In the first and most important phase, we will focus on educational and informational, we would say a visual campaign, where by means of leaflets, stickers, posters, banners, billboards, but also activity in social media and precisely in advertisements on the Internet, we will try to convince Poles that the choice is between peace and war and in the well-understood interest of Poles and the Polish state is simply peace.
Therefore, we believe that Poland should pursue a multi-vector policy, a policy of zero enemies among neighbors neighbors and not to look for problems where there are none, because we are not advocating some kind of alliance with Russia, this is absurd, what our opponents accuse us of. We want to conduct normal relations economic relations with Belarus, with Russia, with Germany, with China, with Iran, with the US.
Of course, an integral part of our action is: , “Stop the Americanization of Poland”, but it is very often is misunderstood. We are not against everything American. We are not against the American people American people. We criticize the current foreign policy, the security policy of the US, while we do not criticize everything American. We are in favor of normal trade, normal economic relations with the US.
If Poland transfers F-16 aircraft to Ukraine, we will be even more disarmed than we have been so far. It is something unimaginable how today Poland is heavily disarmed. Today Poland is in the worst shape, as far as the defense system is concerned, after 1989, because the defense system is, after all, not only the armed forces, but also the broadly defined system of resilience of the Polish state, also when it comes to the system of civil defense. This is a very important issue, and we know very well from two reports by the Supreme Audit Office, from 2012 and 2019, that Poland does not have an effective civil defense system. Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration, Mr. Marcin Warchoł, said clearly that only 3% of the population in Poland has access to shelters, so today Poland is unprepared for any conflict when it comes to civil defense and when it comes to the armed forces. And I say this as a lieutenant of the Polish Army reserve. I know very well how disastrous system of reserve training in the Polish state looks like.
– What will be the aftermath of President Zelenski’s travels? What might be the aftermath of all these trips that are taking place at the moment?
I think that these types of international events, such as meetings, whether it’s the UN General Assembly or the OSCE assembly, or when it comes to the NATO summit show perfectly that it is ineffective when it comes to helping Ukraine. Today countries, the so-called collective West, do not want to effectively help Ukraine, because if they wanted to, they would intervene militarily. The U.S. would be able to close the airspace over Ukraine, and they don’t, because this war in Ukraine is a catalyst for a great many political processes that are in the favor of the US and Western European countries, such as the federalization of the European Union, or the acceleration of Agenda 2030, or, for example, the introduction of the energy transition, in terms of terms of the whole climate change and everything related to it, so here we are dealing with a lot of, I would say, convergent also of transnational corporations and the most important countries in the world.